Facebook Canada declares itself a friend of Justin Trudeau’s campaign

Newspapers have traditionally asserted their political preference on editorial pages, and commercial broadcasters are increasingly taking sides in order to gain ratings.

So, what is stopping social media outlets — big information pipelines in their own right — from getting in the business of promoting a specific political view?

Facebook affirmed a link with Justin Trudeau on Thursday afternoon. The Liberal leadership candidate was the keynote interview at Facebook’s Strategy Summit at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

The invited advertising and marketing industry audience all but assured a warm reception. Media covering the event seemed to savour the air of exclusivity, even if it consisted entirely of platitudes. Can you believe that Trudeau’s team is looking to Barack Obama for inspiration on how to rally support through social networks?

"unlike our republican candidate to the south, I always assume there's someone in a room recording what I say," says @justinpjtrudeau

Of course, compared to four years ago, Facebook is much more concerned with nurturing connections between people and brands rather than old pals. Jordan Banks, the managing director of its Canadian office, boasted as much as a prelude to tossing softballs at the featured guest.

The degree to which Trudeau will bring his own business to Facebook was not disclosed. But, then, it couldn’t hurt the company to establish a relationship with a potential prime minister.

To be fair, others have gone down this road before.

Stephen Harper hadn’t yet scored his majority Conservative government when the Prime Minister’s Office seemed warmer to these technological alliances.

MySpace Canada promoted that Stephen Harper was using the service to post his musings as part of a futile effort to attract eyeballs in 2009. An opportunity to ask the PM a question via YouTube in March 2010 drew 1,800 hopeful submissions — although it also raised conflict-of-interest questions, as Google Canada was registered to lobby the government on telecommunications issues.

Currently, it seems that Harper has no incentive to try very hard at social media outreach, as a growing number of algorithms do that for him.

Facebook users are often prompted to see “More posts about Stephen Harper.” Grouped status updates about Trudeau and Harper, at least, link to their respective official pages.

But Facebook is a powerful enough entity that it doesn’t need to change its algorithms to push its own political goals. Facebook can, evidently, give preferred candidates a boost in other ways.